Expert: Tina - 5/21/2004

Question
We just adopted a 9 week old kitten from the shelter a week ago.  All week everything was fine, we reminded him to go to the litterbox (took him to the basement) and he was going there on his own.  We have a 13 year old cat and they get along well.  Today he has defecated and urinated (in separate places) in the dining room.  We had previously had a cat for a short time that urinated there, and have tried several thing (including removing and replacing carpet padding)  I guess he can still smell it, and is now attracted to it.  We have confined him now to the basement, and hate that too.  Any ideas?  We hate to surrender him.  He has been to the vet and is healthy (no feline leukemia, first shots, wormed, etc).  Thanks for your help!!!

Answer
Hi Pam,

There's no need to surrender this little guy. It's quite common for kittens to have some problems adjusting to an entire house, and sometimes like little kids they get busy playing and forget how to get to the box!

You need to put a few more litterboxes around the house, at least until kitty is 6 months old and you can start reducung the number, Definitely have at least one on each floor, you can't expect a baby to remember where to go down the stairs to the basement, and the stairs are a lot of work for a little one.

Put a litterbox in the living room where he's having to go now. If he seems to be sniffing around there, use a black light (available at pet stores for this purpose) to detect any cat urine left there - it glows under black light. Then treat the areas with Nature's Miracle, an enzyme that breaks down cat urine at the molecular level. It's available at most pet stores like petsmart and petco.

Finally, you can read some tips abour helping your new kitty settle in on our website at http://catnet.stanford.edu/articles/careguide.html

With a new kitten, it's always a great idea to get a book on kitten training to help start things off on the right foot. 2 I receommend are "Kitten Care and Training" by Amy Shojai and "How to Raise a Well-adjusted Cat: not a sour puss" by Pam Johnson-Bennett.

Good luck and best wishes with the new baby kitty!